Читать книгу His Brother's Baby - Laurie Campbell - Страница 6

March 12

Not even Kenny could be late to his own wedding.

Could he?

Lucy Velardi dropped her last two quarters into the courthouse pay phone and punched in the number they’d shared for the past five weeks. It was silly to be nervous when he’d probably just missed his flight back to Scottsdale. If she hadn’t left the house early to pick up her dress—a dress that revealed no sign of the reason for this marriage—he would have called to let her know.

Wouldn’t he?

Sure enough, the answering machine held a message in his familiar, lazy voice. “Hey, babe, it’s me. Look, I’m really sorry, but I, uh, I won’t be coming back. I got this chance to play on the Asian tour, and…well, I just don’t think us getting married would be such a good idea after all.”

What?! Lucy almost cried out before realizing the message wasn’t finished yet.

“I mean, I’m really not ready for a baby, you know?” he explained. As if she was ready—but they had until October to prepare. “And once you think it over, I bet you’ll feel the same way…because a baby just wouldn’t work out right now.”

She would never feel that way, no matter how badly this unexpected pregnancy had complicated her life. How could anyone dismiss a baby so casually, so—

“But don’t worry,” Kenny continued, “I’m putting a check in the mail you can use for, uh, taking care of things. Call it a house-sitting payment, okay? Because, listen, you’re welcome to stay in the house until next January.”

He sounded relieved, she realized numbly, as if that offer made everything right. As if all she cared about was his money and his house.

“Nobody ever uses it except for a few weeks after New Year’s,” came his blithe assurance, “so it’s all yours until then. I know you gave up your apartment, but the family really needs a house-sitter, and I bet you’ll do a great job.”

At least she’d have a place to stay until after the baby was born, but what she’d wanted was a family for her baby. For little Matthew, or little Emma—names she’d already begun using in her imagination, because they sounded so good with Tarkington. But now neither she, nor the baby, would share Kenny’s name.

“Anyway,” he concluded, sounding as cheerful as if he’d suddenly finished a difficult task, “I’m really glad I got to know you—we had some great times, huh? Well, take care of yourself…. Bye.”

And that was that.

Lucy held on to the phone receiver, staring blindly at the lobby beyond her. At the flat white wall, the fluorescent light, the cluster of people in line near the door…until a shrill beep in her ear made her realize the message had ended long ago, and her fingers were starting to cramp.

She couldn’t quite draw a full breath, she discovered while hanging up the phone. Couldn’t quite shake the chill from her hands, her lips, her face. Couldn’t quite make herself think, or cry, or even move—although she would have to move, because she couldn’t spend the rest of her life standing here in the courthouse lobby.

But she couldn’t do anything right now except breathe. In short, unsteady gasps. She felt as if she might burst into tears at any moment—which would be a good thing, because tears could be spilled and then forgotten—but right now she was too stunned even to cry. She had never experienced anything too intense for tears before, Lucy realized, anything like this mixture of disbelief and anguish and desperation and—

And, in a way, relief.

Which didn’t make sense, but she needed to hang on to any comfort she could get. Any comfort that would give her the strength to head back to the bus stop for the dismal trip home.

Alone.

No, not alone, she reminded herself as she made her way outside into what felt like blinding sunlight. She still had the baby inside her…a baby who would never hear a word about this day. Who would never know that its father hadn’t wanted a child.

But his belief that she could even consider terminating her pregnancy proved she’d been right in thinking last week, the day before noticing her period was late, that she and Kenny didn’t really belong together after all. Their first three or four weeks had been dizzying; a frenzy of love-at-first-sight exhilaration and passion and fun. But lately, she had begun suspecting that the relationship wouldn’t last.

And that, no matter how much she might have enjoyed the giddy whirlwind of life with a high-flying golfer, because she didn’t really want it to last.

But the baby would never know that, Lucy resolved on a shaky breath as she made her way back to the bus stop bench. Emma or Matthew would hear only the good things about their father, would hear only about the first month when she had loved Kenny.

Because all she could give her child was the comfort of feeling wanted and loved. And no matter what happened, she was going to love this baby.

Her baby.

Hers alone.